Ideas & Images

Tag Archives: Better Business

Back in 2014, I was very impressed with the CVS drugstore chain’s decision to stop selling tobacco. It was the first national retail pharmacy chain to stop selling tobacco products in all its stores with a claimed loss of $2 billion in sales. That’s a lot of money. And a lot of tobacco. Good for CVS. The company later reported that the decision was associated with a measurable reduction in cigarette sales in areas where CVS had at least a 15 percent share in the retail pharmacy market. https://bit.ly/2MCbzP7

As a regular user of CVS’s pharmacy services, I also buy a lot of other merchandise from their stores. One of the items I bought in June of this year was a package of cotton “rounds.” It looks like this, Beauty 360 being the CVS house brand:

Here is an email I sent CVS about the ensuing problem with the packaging:

The rounds come in a plastic tube designed to be opened at one end to remove the rounds as needed. I placed this package on a rack in my bathroom such that the package rested against the wall. … The package literally dissolved in the humidity of the bathroom and stuck to the wall. I have tried soaking it to scrape it off to no avail. It just damaged the paint.

I can only assume this has happened to others, but in any case, since it is CVS’s brand product, I look forward to your advice as to how to remove the plastic from the wall without damaging the wall. As renters, asking the building to do this could prove very expensive.

There ensued a short series of emails in which CVS asked me to return the product, which they would replace. I did. On July 6. They didn’t. By emails, CVS indicated they were testing the product to verify what I had reported. Weeks passed. More emails were exchanged in which I told CVS that I was not prepared to wait indefinitely for a response as to how the plastic could safely be removed from the wall. Silence.

I always wonder what goes on behind the scenes in large companies like CVS. Its stores are ubiquitous in the Washington area, where I previously lived, and in New York City. The company was reasonably quick to respond to my initial complaint but then, perhaps faced with confirmation of the validity of my complaint, decided to simply ignore me.

One thing is certainly true. I will not be ignored. And, thus, we are here, using the only tool at my disposal to try to shame CVS into responding to my documented complaint about a product sold under its brand. This is not the end of this saga but the beginning. I intend to file complaints in the near future with the Better Business Bureau and such other consumer protection agencies in New York City as I can find. CVS, this could all have been avoided if you had just acted responsibly.